Ok well my RPG has been running for over a year now and we are going through a slow time at the moment. I have asked the members if they have got bored with the site and want me to try and change it slightly but they said they love it the way it is. My problem is there are about 3 people, including me, posting regularly and when I ask the others why I get the answer, "Sorry I've got no muse"

How do you deal with your members, and staff, not posting because of this 'lack of muse'?

Warning: lack of muse can also be an excuse for being lazy.

I go through muse issues often enough to know that I have to be fed creative noodles in order go get my muse back. But sometimes it just gets sucked down the drain and I just have to let it run its course. There are quite a few things I look for when I loose muse.

- First thing I do is run back to my character's profile and read the whole thing, remind myself why I love this character and why I created it in the first place. I must have had muse when I created him/her.

-If you are an admin, come up with or suggest an event. Have an awards voting. Something like "Best Villain." or "Most Dangerous". Don't change the forum but think of something new that doesn't have to be permanent.

-Ask your members what they like and see if you can incorporate it into your forum.

I got inspired by Infamy & Entropy with all their events on the board that happens quite a lot. See, they are set during war time, and in war time RPs, you need to have battles, attacks, massacres, killings of leaders, etc. etc. It inspired me to have events happen all the time on my own forums, too, even if it wasn't war time. If it is set in a small town, then you could have new buisnesses that threaten the peace and 'small town' feeling in that town.
Do the same with your own. Really look at your board's plot, and see what new things you guys could do. What events could happen that would make role playing on that board seem more exciting?

Another thing to do is make sure the OOC areas are active. If you don't have a chat box, get one, and try to talk about all sorts of things in it. If you get loopy, don't worry - it will seem like a new door is open, and that members can just talk and get to know each other. It will break the ice. Maybe the reason your forum is slowing down is because not everyone knows everybody else. Welcome threads, to me, don't quite cover it. Members should be friends and should be able to talk to each other, including times when you're not there.
Make sure in your OOC sections that you've got threads in there that talk about anything and everything. Talk about things that are in the news these days, political or entertainment wise. Also try to discuss things that happen in your members' lives. School. Dating. Cars. Food. Houses. Games. Books. Movies. Friends. etc. etc.

^ Hopefully those helped :)

I'd like to put in my support here for the chat box suggestion. I've got a rather nice one sitting at the top of my board and it gets a fair deal of use, even if it's only used by a small amount of our members. It's quicker and easier than posting a new thread or something and members have less restrictions. Not to mention you can use it to attract guests if you decide to leave it open to them.

I've also got a client on my board that redirects to an IRC channel of mine on a friend's server, and I must say that it's a lot more personal than a chatbox even if that, too, is way under-used. Still, it's one of those things that can help bring members closer together.

I'm also having a fair deal of trouble finding and keeping active, dedicated members, so maybe I'm not exactly one to talk, but hopefully my offering helped a little bit.

Thanks for your suggestions. We already have a chatbox that is used by a few people.
Thanks Junebug for the OOC suggestions, I'm going to put some of those in place now =]

How about a roleplay request forum? I added that recently, so the members can request people to roleplay with...it might help with getting members to interact more with each other out of character. =D

Bug people. It's just laziness.
I PM members. In a really nice, caring admin way, and I mean it in a caring way, but it gets people back into the swing of things if they realise that someone has noticed they have gone. Remind them what there is to be gained from posting, but also ask via PM if there is anything they would like improving. From experience I would say some people don't post ideas but would prefer to talk it through with an admin. Maybe that's just my lovely bunch though (:

Sometimes lack of muse is a genuine problem. I love RP'ing, I really do, but real life gets in the way. I have a lot of things on my mind, and it sometimes interferes with my ability to write anything that anyone would want to read. Of course, a certain level of activity is necessary, but I don't want to churn a sucky post just because it's expected of me.

My advice is to make things as much fun as possible. A site-wide event, a writer's challenge with IC or OOC rewards, OOC shenanigans, whatever. Try and think of something that's unique for your site, something that will get old players back into the swing of things.

I personally disagree with bugging people to be more active, but that might just be me and my odd psyche. If I feel pressured to do something, I feel much less inclined to do it, and if I really don't have muse/time/whatever to write a post, bugging me about it is just going to frustrate and annoy me, which isn't beneficial to anyone. Bottom line is, you can't force people to post, you can't do anything about their lack of muse (perceived or otherwise). The only thing you can do is make the game fun and interesting.

Usually when it hits everyone at once like that, it means it's time for some site-wide plottage to get swinging. Even if it doesn't effect everyone on the site, if you choose the people it does effect carefully, everyone will be able to react because of word-of-mouth, etc.

...catastrophe got there first...

What I would suggest to any administrator and any lover of roleplaying is networking- try to foster friendships amongst your players. Even though my board hasn't been the popular success I hoped it would be, I have made some of the most enriching friendships I've ever had in my life- in fact, I've had friendships through roleplaying that have lasted for up to 10 years!

One of the ways I've done this is to have little creative meetings/how do you do events where people can either discuss a storyline together, or just b.s about the weather.

Either way, when people are constantly surrounded by other likeminded people, they tend to thrive. You'll see this in any aspect of somebody's life.

OOC communication amongst your members is vital. I'd try maybe using a messenger like MSN, AIM, yahoo...and make a conference. Encouraging members to use a certain IM program might help too.

That's all I can suggest.